


Sick of Losing Soulmates

by theOther_Will_Grayson



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Autistic Spencer Reid, M/M, Post-Maeve, Sex and stuff in later chapters, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:33:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25473181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theOther_Will_Grayson/pseuds/theOther_Will_Grayson
Summary: Your Soul Mark changes when your soulmate dies. It's been one too many times for the both of them. Right after Maeve, towards the end of Magnum Opus.
Relationships: Aaron Hotchner/Spencer Reid, Penelope Garcia/Derek Morgan
Comments: 26
Kudos: 144





	1. If You Hadn't Found Me

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first attempt at a multi-chaptered fic literally EVER, and I'm relatively new to CM but I'm really pumped. I don't have a ton of warnings, but THAT WILL CHANGE LATER ON, SO BE WARNED. Pay attention to the tags as this story updates. The title is from the song by Dodie.

“Okay, thanks, babygirl—”

“Derek, wait!”

Morgan puts the phone back up to his ear. “Yes?”

A pause, and a rather suspicious one at that. “You’re alone, right? No one can hear me?”

Morgan’s eyes widen and dart around to the officers surrounding him in the bullpen, going about their business. He folds in on himself, pressing the phone harder into his ear, as if that’s going to help. “Not the time, Penelope Garcia!”

“No, I — ugh, even when it’s obviously ‘not the time’ you still think it’s about sex. Well, phone sex.” She gives an offended huff. “I would  _ never _ , by the way, when you’re on a case.”

“Then what is it?” Hotch is looking at him from across the bullpen, but isn’t beckoning or motioning insistently yet, so he has some time.

“You’ve seen Reid, right?”

“Yeah, you heard him.”

“Yeah, I…” She hesitates, a rarity for her. “Have you seen it?”

She doesn’t need to say what ‘it’ is; it’s been on all of their minds ever since he came back, his arms fully covered by cardigan sleeves. “No. No one has. And it’s probably going to stay that way.”

“Do you think it’s even appeared yet?”

Morgan sighs. “I don’t—” Hotch is beckoning him rather insistently now. “Lovebug, I gotta go. Get me that list and we’ll talk soon.”

“Okay…”

“Love you.”

“Derek…” Penelope’s voice softens. “Take care of him, okay? He needs you. Buy him a latte or something.”

Morgan can’t help but grin. His Penelope, always taking care of her baby birds, even when they stray from the nest. “You know I will.”

“Thank you. Love you.”

Morgan hangs up and pockets the phone. He goes to follow Hotch, but makes sure to give Reid a pat on the shoulder as he passes. Reid doesn’t return his smile.

~

_ NO! _

Maeve is lying dead before him. Blood seeps into the knees of his slacks. Hands are on his shoulder, gentle voices.  _ Spence, it’s time to go. _ How long has he been crying? 

_ No, wait, please, I have to—  _ He’s pushing back her sleeve, but hands are pulling at him and he can’t read the mark and it’s all jumbled and her arm is miles away and the mark is fading and— 

Spencer gasps, flailing around for a moment as he gets his bearings. He’s on the jet. He fell asleep on the jet, and he had a nightmare, and now everyone is trying not to stare at him.

It’s then he notices Hotch, crouched next to him in the aisle, his hand on Spencer’s shoulder.

Spencer shakes him off and sits up, holding his face in his hands, completely and utterly mortified. He shouldn’t have come. He should have just stayed in his apartment where only his books and posters can hear him scream Maeve’s name in the middle of the night. He curls in on himself, threading his fingers through his hair and wishing he could yank it out in chunks.

He feels Hotch sit down in the space his legs have just vacated, but he doesn’t acknowledge his presence. He doesn’t want to talk. Hotch only pays him a neutral glance before reaching across the aisle for his bag and pulling out a book. As if nothing had happened, he parts the pages, crosses his legs, and begins to read.

Unable to resist his curiosity, Spencer peeks out ever so slightly more to read the title, and can’t help a snort.  _ The Da Vinci Code. _

Hotch glances up, the corners of his mouth quirking up slightly. “It’s a guilty pleasure.” If Spencer didn’t know any better, he’d say Hotch is a little embarrassed. “Some people have reality TV, I have Dan Brown’s rather dry prose and mildly compelling mystery.”

“ _ Mildly compelling? _ ” Spencer scoffs, taking his hands out of his hair and wrapping them around his waist. “More like ludicrous and wildly inaccurate. The idea that Da Vinci’s works—” He closes his mouth quickly. “I won’t ruin it for you.”

“Thanks,” Hotch replies, only half joking. “What about you?”

“Me?”

“Well you read classic literature casually, you have to have some meaningless guilty pleasure, something lighter.”

Spencer searches Hotch’s face for any sign of mocking, then immediately feels irrational for doing so. It’s  _ Hotch _ . “Comic books,” he answers, the confidence in his tone surprising even himself. “Any graphic novels, really. Comic books, manga. They’re the only thing I read slowly. I take time to appreciate the art.”

“Interesting. No, wait don’t tell me…” Hotch coks his head, considering him. “Iron Man, right?”

“Spider Man, if you’re wondering about my favorite superhero, though I do enjoy the arcs where Tony Stark is a sort of father figure to Peter Parker and—” Spencer cuts himself off. “You’ve just seen the movies, haven’t you?”

Hotch has that gentle amusement in his eyes again. “Jack likes them.”

Spencer rolls his eyes and sits back, crossing his arms. His body language isn’t open, Hotch’s profiler brain notes, but at least it isn’t completely closed off. 

“Sinful,” Spencer says under his breath. Against his will, a small smile tugs at his lips.

“ _ Sinful? _ Strong language, Reid.” God damn it, Hotch is going to hold onto this moment as tight as he can.

Spencer tries to hold it back, but the words come tumbling out of him. “Toby Maguire acts like he’s never interacted with a human and cries like a little bitch baby, and the choice to make Peter Parker grow the webs out of his wrists slanders, in my opinion, the best version of the character, who is a scientific genius who  _ invents  _ his webshooters. No, they replace him with some emo dancing moron. And don’t even get me started on the CGI. It looks like a—” Spencer’s eyes go wide, and he snaps his mouth shut. “Sorry.”

Hotch frowns. “For what?”

“I...I don’t know. Rambling?” Spencer looks at Hotch, forces himself to meet his eyes. “This is the longest personal conversation we’ve ever had. I didn’t want to ruin it.”

Hotch smiles at him, one of those warm, nurturing smiles that are so rare. “You didn’t ruin anything.”

Except he  _ did _ , because if he hadn’t stopped, maybe Hotch would be replying right now and they’d have this rapport, a real conversation about their interests. Instead, Spencer had slammed on the brakes, hard. Nothing is a bigger detriment to conversation than talking about conversation.

That’s how it is with everyone now, though. Tense. Awkward. Evasive. It’s his fault, really. He locked himself in his apartment and now everyone assumes he doesn’t want to talk. Just because everyone else on the team is mysterious and cold and keeps their emotions to themselves doesn’t mean he is, especially now, after all this time. He wants to spill everything, all his feelings because he’s afraid if he keeps them in he’ll find himself on his bathroom floor, watching the ceiling spin, just glad that the feelings are gone for a little while. And yeah, they’re asking him if he’s okay, but ‘ _ are you okay’ _ is vastly different from ‘ _ tell me everything, I’m listening.’ _ ‘ _ Are you okay?’ _ just means  _ ‘say yes so I feel better.’ _

And it’s not like he can blame them. There is no precedent for tragedy. No one knows exactly what to do in its wake, not even FBI profilers. There’s no precedent for grief, either. It’s new, horrifying, nauseating. Emily’s “death” didn’t hurt this bad. He’s bursting at the seams. He wants to tell everyone about Maeve, how beautiful her voice was, how she looked exactly like he thought she would, the bittersweet relief when he held her forearm and realized their Marks were exactly the same.

But like most of his rants, no one wants to hear all that. 

Except...Hotch has bookmarked  _ The Da Vinci Code _ . He’s set it aside, and now he’s looking at Spencer, not expectantly, not with pity, just...open, waiting.

“Do you want to see it?”

Hotch seems to not react, but internally his heart skips a beat. He knows exactly what Spencer means, still he asks, “Sorry?”

“My new Mark. It’s coming in.”

Soul Marks are intimate business. They’re not exactly a secret, but they’re a very private part of..well, your soul. It’s that way for everyone, but Hotch knows from experience that the desire for privacy is exacerbated when your soulmate dies and you have to watch the old Mark fade and a new one appear. The fact that Spencer is just...offering, especially after the entire team had seen very plainly that the Mark on Maeve’s rapidly cooling body perfectly matched the one on Spencer’s quaking wrist is...staggering.

“I know everyone is wondering,” Spencer mumbles, fiddling with the button on the sleeve of his shirt as if reconsidering his offer.

“They’re nosey,” Hotch says dismissively. “You don’t owe anyone anything.”

“Yeah but…” Spencer bites his lip. “I want to show someone. I want…” Finally, he looks up at Hotch, wide eyed. “I want to show you.”

Hotch considers him for a moment. There’s an ethical dilemma here, a question of whether he believes Spencer to be in his right mind or possibly plagued by grief and compelled to make rash decisions. But every bit of Spencer’s expression shows determination, rationality, lucidity. So, after a brief moment to decide that yes, he will do literally anything it takes to make Reid feel better, he says, “Okay.”

Reid nods, and begins to roll up his sleeve. Every Soul Mark is breathtaking, a circular pattern of swirls and sweeping lines in some ancient language that no one can decipher any longer. Spencer’s is especially beautiful, the raised white lines almost lacy, condensed, complex, and...glowing. There’s an opalescent glow beneath the surface, swirling like an oil slick. It’s enthralling, so powerfully so that Hotch forgets for a moment the implications until Reid says, “It’s only supposed to do that when the Soulmate is present…”

The words work their way through Hotch’s brain, and something clicks, because now that he thinks about it, that pattern of swirls looks familiar…

Spencer gasps, and they lock eyes, realizing it at the same time. Foggily, Hotch fumbles to push his sleeve back. His soul mark is glowing opalescent. Breathlessly, he puts his wrist next to Reids.

They’re an exact match.


	2. Brave Face

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoo...We have a second chapter! Yall's comments bring me life, so keep em coming! I am really excited for this, but I'm shooting in the dark here so let me know what you guys want to see out of this. AH!!! Also, I don't know if I said this on my last chapter, but I believe in autistic Spencer, but I am allistic myself and can only base my writing off of what little I know from information from the community. Do not hesitate to politely correct me or suggest something, I don't care if it's for a chapter I just posted, I will change it! Thank you for your understanding, support, and help!

The air in the jet feels like tacky glue drying on his hands and it’s an odd simile but it’s all he can think of when his entire life has been altered irreparably. Their lives will never be the same and yet all they can do for now is sit and think about it, think about it, think about it, look at each other and silently agree that the jet is Not The Place to talk, and think about it.

Spencer is switching between pushing the heels of his hands into his jumping thighs and pressing his thumbs into his collarbone. The movements are methodical, calming, and absolutely do not distract him for the remainder of the flight.

Hotch has reopened  _ The Da Vinci Code _ , but hasn’t turned the page for seven minutes and twenty two, twenty three, twenty four seconds. His jaw is set and he’s staring at some spot on the carpet unseeingly.

At some point, Hotch places his hand on Spencer’s knee, which does nothing to stop its jiggling, but is enough to make Reid think that perhaps the world hasn’t ended entirely.

The rest of the team either doesn’t notice anything off as they exit the jet or they choose not to say anything. They’re all too exhausted to think about anything but warm beds and arms of loved ones waiting for them at home.

“You took the metro here?” Hotch murmurs from behind him as they trudge across the tarmac, and heat blooms from his hand on the small of Spencer’s back and maybe it’s just because he’s overwhelmed but his knuckles grip white on the strap of his bag as he nods. “Let me give you a ride home.”

“I — okay.”

And God, it’s been only about twenty minutes since a simple pattern of white ink flipped his world upside down, but he’s already thinking about what things are going to be like with Aaron Hotchner. He already wants to hold his hand, kiss his stubble, bury his face in the soft fabric of his suit. He wants to invite Hotch up to his apartment and fall asleep on his chest because this one...this one is here. His Soulmate is right here instead of miles away on the other end of a phone line like—

Maeve.

His heart drops and guilt coils in his stomach like snakes. He’s moving on so quickly — how can he just cast her aside like this? And he knows the science behind it, how meeting your Soulmate releases hormones into your body and makes you fall in love quickly and irrationally, how Soulmate relationships statistically move very fast and yet are generally more stable than their non-mate counterparts and it’s normal to feel a sort of survivor’s guilt and refuse to move on because moving on feels like forgetting but that doesn’t stop him from stepping away from Hotch’s hand, the heat dissipating like smoke.

He has walked in a daze to the parking lot and found himself in the passenger seat of Hotch’s car, clutching his bag to his chest. The engine hums, and Hotch’s face is inches away as he twists over his shoulder and clutches the back of Spencer’s seat to back out. The highway lulls the silence from awkwardness to ease, and Spencer feels like he can finally get his breath back. Hotch drives with one hand, and it’s so tempting to thread their fingers together, kiss Hotch’s knuckles, rest their clasped hands on his thigh and hope it earns him that gentle smile. He sits on his hands instead.

“I had a—”

“I think we should—”

They blurt at the same time. Hotch chuckles, eyes steadfastly on the red light which stalls them momentarily. “You first,” he says.

“I had a crush on you for a long time. I have no idea if you knew.” By the expression on Hotch’s face, he didn’t. Spencer’s eyes fixate on his lap, embarrassed now. “I used to—” He laughs a little. “I used to be so jealous of Hayley, but then I remembered how much time you spent at the BAU, and I thought at least I—” 

_ Go ahead, idiot. Tell him how much you loved spending more time with him than his dead Soulmate used to. That’s a great start _ . He swallows, threading his fingers through his hair and wishing he could hide from this. “You were an attractive older man with a position of power and an incredible reputation in my dream job, how could I, a young awkward boy with daddy issues just trying to find where he belonged not fall absolutely head over heels?” 

Saying it out loud sounds so clinical, like hospital lights and alcohol wipes, but the warmth of his old crush is anything but. It’s library shelves and cologne, candlelight, his favorite sweater vest. Words rarely capture reality.

“I used to try way too hard to make you smile. Cracking that hard exterior of yours made me feel special.” Spencer lets out a breath, the weight of the confession hanging for dear life on the end of his tongue, and forces himself to look at the Hotch. “I guess what I’m trying to say is...fate is trying to bring us together. And to an extent, the Mark is just a formality, an excuse to act on how I already felt for a long time.”

It’s then that he notices it. You have to spend a lot of time with Aaron Hotchner to truly understand his microexpressions. It’s a talent Spencer and the rest of his team have had to cultivate over dozens of weeks of jets and car rides and cases and hotels and bullpens. And he can tell in an instant that the other man isn’t saying something. 

“Hotch…” Spencer says, concern mounting.

“I should have gone first.”

Spencer just waits, trepidation freezing his lips in place.

“I was going to say…” And Hotch looks pained. “We...we shouldn’t do this.”

Spencer feels himself go into cardiac arrest.

“I’m your superior. And yes, the rules are lax for Soulmates, but not for lack of ethical dilemma. And in the field, I can’t...And with Beth, I can’t just...And it’s so soon for you—”

“I get it,” Spencer snaps, instantly regretting his tone, not because of how Hotch’s expression almost morphs into pity, but because by his calculations of the timing of the car ride, they still have six and a half minutes to go.

“Spencer…”

He doesn’t answer, just looks out the window, watching the porch lights float lazily by. Hotch doesn’t attempt to say anything else.

The next six minutes and seventeen seconds are torture, agony, death by a million ignored glances. He’s never felt his thoughts race so unclearly, so clouded by emotion, twisting and turning and running into each other and tripping over themselves until his mind is filled with this numb buzzing. By the time Hotch finally pulls up to the curb in front of his apartment, Spencer has practically bitten the tip of his thumb off trying to hold back tears. The car isn’t even fully stopped before he’s yanking at his seatbelt and fumbling with the door handle and clumsily gathering his things and  _ just get home, just get home, just get home… _

“Spencer,” Hotch calls after him. “I’m sorry. I mean that. I wish it didn’t have to be this way, but—”

“Yeah, Hotch?” Spencer bites back, whirling. “Next time you want to break my heart, don't trap me in your car.”

He walks away, slams the door, trudges up the steps, fumbles with his keys, toes off his shoes, and slides to the floor before he finally lets the tears fall.

And the worst part is, Garcia’s baskets crowding the coffee table with serotonin-boosting nuts don’t change the fact that he’s completely and utterly alone.


	3. Talk So Lightly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No I did not get heavily inspired by BAU Group Text by @TobiasHankel why do you ask? Thanks for all the love, enjoy!

Spencer awakes the next morning on his couch, fully clothed, drool caking one side of his face. He groans and stretches, the soreness in his neck no doubt caused by the hardness of his pillow, which was...oh god... _ The Narrative of John Smith _ . He foggily remembers finding it in a daze and wiping the peanut dust and salt off his fingers before stroking the cover as if it were Maeve’s cheeks and not a paper sleeve. Frenzied, he flips through the pages, scrutinizes the cover, and breathes a sigh of relief at the lack of damage. He stands and places it carefully on the shelf, still feeling the same twinge of guilt that caused him to take it out last time — it feels wrong to hide it among other, plainer books. He forces himself to push the feeling aside. It’s a book, not Maeve herself.

But not for the first time, his thoughts wander to what if, to a world where Soulmates are fair and he and Maeve are alone together. No stalkers, no payphones. Unfortunately, whatever cosmic force controls his fate hates him too much to allow him that happiness.

Holy shit, he’s late. The clock on his stove says 11:17, and vaguely he registers the distant sound of his alarm clock going off in his bedroom, but he can’t bring himself to spring into action, run through metro times in his head, throw on clothes, stuff a bagel in his mouth, and rush to work.

Hotch  _ did _ say he still doesn’t need to come back if he doesn’t want to…

_ I’m already this late _ , he thinks as he trods over to his bedroom, punches the alarm into silence, and pulls his pajamas from his dresser.  _ Might as well just stay home _ .

It occurs to him as he’s popping bread into the toaster that perhaps he should tell someone. He realizes with an inward groan that there’s probably already an avalanche of texts waiting for him. He swipes his phone up from bhe coffee table anyway, grimacing at all the messages that greet him.

**JJ**

_ Spence are you coming in today? _

_ Its ok if youre not _

_ We just need to know _

_ Were worried _

_ I love you _

He sighs, turning the phone over in his hands. JJ is one of his closest friends, family, really. It’s just that he really doesn’t want comfort from someone who actually has no idea what they’re delivering comfort for.

_ Don’t worry about me. I’m fine, just not ready _

_ to come back fully yet. _

_ Love you too. _

There’s a metric fuckton of voicemails from Penelope. Now  _ that’s _ going to be hell to deal with. He has no doubt Garcia is worried sick, and probably more in need of assurance than he is.

There’s a text from Derek, one from Blake, an  _ e-mail _ of all things from Rossi…

Nothing from Hotch.

His toast pops up and he slathers it with peanut butter — creamy, of course — arranges the slices on his plate, pours himself a glass of orange juice — no pulp — and takes the whole thing back to the coffee table before forcing himself to decide what to do.

The preview of the text from Derek looks...not terrible, so he maneuvers the text app with one hand and a piece of toast with the other.

**Morgan**

_ pretty boy ur starting to remind me if  _

_ Spiderman :P _

Spencer freezes, his mouth mid-crunch as every organ in his body grinds to a shuddering halt.

_ Why is that? _

_ bc u swoop in n save the day n leave _

_ the rest of us normies to do the paperwork :D _

_ You could have picked literally  _ _ any superhero.  _

_ How much did you hear? _

_ just enough to blackmail u n hotch about  _ _ how nerdy  _

_ u are lmao _

_ then the nerd talk bored me so much i fell _

_ asleep _

_ F off _

_ lmaoooooo _

_ You text like a maniac. _

_ Have I ever told you that _

_ Cuz it’s actually painful. _

_ you neeed to answer pen, shes worried  _ _ sick _

_ Ah, so she did sic her lapdog on me. _

_ insults will get you nowhere _

_ im proud to be her lil good boy _

_ Nasty _

_ her puppy dog _

_ Disgusting _

_ Why _

_ u started it pretty boy _

_ also i bet anything ur smiling rn _

Damn him, he’s right. Derek is probably, next to Hotch, the least heart-on-his-sleeve out of all of them, and yet he’s the best at getting Spencer to be the opposite. 

_ I hate you. _

_ lies  _

_ oop i think jj is getting jellyyyyy…. _

_ I texted her back. _

_ how many words _

_ I said more than “I’m fine” if that’s what  _ _ you’re asking. _

_ Penelope is going to killlll me if you don’t call her. _

_ Sheesh okay _

He doesn’t call Penelope, at least not until he’s good and ready, which is after a few hours of lazing around his apartment and trying to relax but instead driving himself to near insanity with cabin fever. 

She picks up halfway through the first ring.

“Reid! Oh my god, you’re alive. I mean, okay. You’re okay, right? Please tell me you’re okay.”

Spencer hears a pause, then the sound of her taking a deep breath, holding it, and letting it out slowly before saying slowly in a voice with the veneer of pleasantry and calmness, “How...are you?”

“Honestly?” Spencer replies, frowning at the giant pile of reread books on his coffee table and the mountain of snack wrappers tossed back into their gift baskets. “Bored.”

“Bored?”

“Yeah, I think… I think I really was ready to get back to work. I just needed a push to realize that…” he breathes, steeling himself. “...that catching bad guys and saving people is a better way to honor M-maeve’s memory than wallowing in my apartment. Thanks, Morgan.” he adds, because he knows Derek is listening in on the other end.

If Penelope notices the way his voice cracks over Maeve’s name, she doesn’t mention it. “So, why didn’t you come in today?”

Spencer pauses. The question he had been trying to avoid. “I, uh, woke up late.”

“And?”

“And…” dammit. “And there was just some stuff I wanted to avoid.”

“Some  _ stuff _ or some _ one _ ?”

“Tell Morgan to stop profiling me.”

Spencer doesn’t like her devious tone one bit. “This is all me, honey bunches, and you don’t need to be a profiler to realize you didn’t answer my question.”

He takes a moment to stare at the phone as if it is the device’s fault he has to endure this torturous interrogation. He does his best to avoid a clipped tone as he says, “I don’t particularly want to talk about it.”

“Is it about your Soul Mark?”

Reid can hear a hissed “Penelope!” on the other end, but he can’t sense anything but the feeling of being gutted slowly and painfully as his world tilts just a fraction of a degree. There’s absolutely no way he can go back now. Just in these few moments of stunned silence, he’s given so much away. Imagine how much his behavior would reveal to a gaggle of profilers if he had to actually spend cases and close quarters under their unyielding scrutiny.

“Sorry, Spence, that was...invasive.”

“Yeah.” He manages, and he can’t bring himself to care about anything other than her lack of further invasion. “I think I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Penelope breathes, and Reid can hear the suppressed excitement in her voice. “Just...you know you can lean on us, right?” Everyone’s here for you.”

It’s not logical, since obviously the same circumstances physically cannot repeat themselves, but his mind wanders to Hotch, and where exactly leaning on someone else for comfort had gotten him thus far. “Right,” he says.

“And not just us, you know? Like, when was the last time you called Emily?”

And suddenly it all comes crashing down on him. He wants to hang up right then and there, but he manages a tight “Thank you” and “I love you” and “See you soon” before punching the speed dial. He clutches the phone to his ear like it might fall to pieces in his hands, closes his eyes, and waits for the ringing to stop.

“Hello?”

“Emily. I need to talk to you. About Doyle.”


	4. You're as Fucked Up as Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Thanks for all the lovely comments! You can see that I've taken a few suggestions into account (some of you just guessed what I already had planned. I'll let you guess which is which ;) ) so thank you so much for all that!
> 
> Come say hi on Tumblr! I don't have a sideblog for CM, but my catch-all for fandom is under the same username. I do have sideblogs if you're into cottagecore, Sanders Sides, or The Adventure Zone/My Brother My Brother and Me. I'd love to have some more personal interaction, so my ask box is always open!
> 
> Love yall, enjoy!

“Spencer you realize this is...out of the blue.” Emily’s pleasant tone has begun to waver under her confusion. “I’m really trying to put all that behind me, so there better be a good reason.”

He’s sitting on his couch and a pencil appears in his hands, where from, he is unsure, but the soft wood is about to feel the wrath of his teeth. “Emily, I—” Wow, it really has been a while since they talked. “I should start from the beginning. I met my soulmate.”

Emily lays out a pregnant pause, and the thought of her just listening to the sound of his gnawing makes him a bit self-conscious, so he just bounces the eraser on his knee instead. “The fact that you began the conversation by asking about Doyle,” Emily finally says, “tells me that perhaps congratulations are not in order.”

“She died.” It’s the first time he’s said it out loud, he realizes with a start. Other than his mother (whom he mentally notes is due for a letter about the whole thing), everyone he would need to tell was there when it happened, and the oddness of actually saying it to Emily catches him by surprise. Maeve is dead. She died. The words roll around in his head like a flat tire, incongruous, not quite right.

Emily lets out a low whistle. “Shit, Spence. I can’t imagine...I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah,” he says, and tears are clogging the back of his throat, but he swallows and forces his voice to sound normal. “Yeah.”

“Tell me about her.”

So he does. Emily is so perfectly easy to talk to, like the big sister he never had. He tells her about Maeve’s incredible wit, how wonderfully complex her mind was and how it danced with his own like they had known each other forever. He talked about the gorgeous lilt of her voice, how it reminded him not of an orchestra, but of a single clarinet, and not of Mozart, but of  _ Rhapsody in Blue.  _ He tells her about the Rose-Davis phenomenon, which is where the same soul links that allow Soulmates to recognize one another when meeting for the first time can also over time inform long distance couples of what their Mate looks like. It’s named after Grace Rose, a secretary for a cosmetics company, and Vanya Davis, who lived with her brother, the CFO of the company. They met over the phone in 1952 and began making frequent calls to one another. Vanya was an artist, who was able to paint over 100 oil portraits of Grace, which progressively evolved to be exact replicas, down to the freckles on Grace’s nose. 

And Emily doesn’t even sound annoyed when his train of thought derails and she has to prompt him into saying the point, which is that Maeve looked exactly like he pictured her.

He tells her how Maeve died. He finds himself rambling again, words tumbling out like an avalanche of things he wishes other people cared enough to ask about. By the end he’s blubbering, almost incoherent through his snotty tears but there’s a weight off his chest and he can hear Emily smiling as she says, “She sounds wonderful, Spencer.”

He smiles back, pressing a wad of tissues to his nose. “She was.”

Emily takes just a little too long to continue. “But you didn’t call about Maeve, did you? You asked about Doyle.”

He sniffles, tossing the tissues in the garbage, stalling, gathering his thoughts. This is where things can get sticky. “When you were with him, did you...I mean it’s not a super big leap to assume that…” He purses his lips, his knee bouncing erratically. “Emily, did you ever try to get rid of it? The Soul Mark?”

The other end is silent for a long time. “Reid, this is not a rabbit hole you want to fall down.”

“You looked into it, right?”

“I mean, yeah but that’s—” She lets out a frustrated growl — she clearly did not intend to agree in any way, shape, or form. “It was all dead ends. There is no safe way to—”

“No  _ safe _ way?”

_ “Reid!” _

He freezes. He can’t remember the last time she said his name so sharply.

“How many cases do you see where the family and friends say they should have seen it coming because the unsub was talking just like you are now?” She takes a deep, calming breath and gives a little hum as if forcing herself to change her tone. “I know that you’re hurting, and I’m pissed as all hell at whoever your Soulmate is for making it indescribably worse, but you have to see that you’re thinking irrationally because...because I can’t watch you go down this path. I won’t.”

She’s speaking so rationally, so fiercely, yet he can’t help but fight the part of his brain that wants him to accept that she’s right.

“You  _ know _ that death is the only way to separate Soulmates. I’m just lucky that Doyle deserved to die.”

And Hotch certainly doesn’t. He hates Emily in this moment, despises her for bringing him down from the frenzied hope he had worked up because without that, all that’s left is his grief. “I wish you wouldn’t compare me to unsubs.”

He can tell it’s probably the last thing she expected or wanted to hear him say. There’s a little aggravation left over as she said, “Drives the point home, doesn’t it? Besides, you do it enough yourself.”

Reid doesn’t really have a response to that. There’s silence as something settles between them. It’s the bitterness of family fights, the unique anger that only tough love can bear. He realizes he’s crying again.

“Can I ask what happened?”

He recognizes the olive branch, but has to push it away. “I’ve been talking this whole time,” he says, scrubbing his t-shirt over his face and hoping his emotion doesn’t show in his tone. “Tell me about you. Any leads on your Soulmate?”

Emily goes quiet again, a sign that maybe the change in subject isn’t as lighthearted as he hoped. “I mean, I”ve been fairly certain who it is for a while now, but she’s...It’s one of the big reasons I said yes to Interpol, actually.”

He feels a suspicion growing in the pit of his stomach, but says nothing, waiting.

“I think…I’m pretty sure we’re parallel.”

It’s a colloquial term for an unfortunately common occurrence. Your first Soulmate dies, but your second is still stuck on their first. Sometimes Spencer wishes that the whole thing was one and done, just to save the grief of being parallel or watching your Mark fade from your arm randomly, without warning. Or maybe it would be better for the Marks to never exist in the first place, save them all the trouble.

“You said ‘she’.”

“So I did.” 

“It’s JJ, isn’t it?”

“...yeah.” Emily just sounds deflated. “I’m almost positive.”

Reid tucks his legs under himself, worrying at his lip with his teeth. “I assume you haven’t told her.”

“She has a Soulmate.”

He grins. “She also has two hands.”

“Reid, I can’t,” she says, his attempt at humor apparently falling flat. “I can’t just upend her life on a hunch.”

His jaw clenches. “Sounds to me like something that should be up to her.” 

“I’ll think about it.”

“Emily, she deserves the chance.”

Silence, except maybe for the sound of gears whirring in Emily’s profiler brain. “Reid...talk to me. What the hell happened?”

The pencil is back in his hands, twirling effortlessly, if a little frenzied, over his knuckles. “Hotch. Hotch is my Soulmate.”

Which will snap first, the pencil or his jaw?

“Oh..my god.”

He hugs his knees closer to his chest. “You remember what I told you in Green Bay?”

“You  _ told _ him??”

“Spilled my guts, and he knocked me flat on my ass.”

Emily sighs. “Give him time —”

“Bullshit,” Reid bites, the pencil abruptly freezing in his vice grip. “It doesn’t take  _ time _ . You know how powerful the Soul-Collide response is.”

“Yeah, I do.” And just that little bit of yearning creeps into her voice. “You could do what I did.”

“Which is?”

“Run away.”

Reid laughs. Is she serious? “Where?”

“London.”

The pencil snaps.

“With my recommendation on top of your talent and accolades, they’ll be falling over themselves to sign your contract.”

“Emily, I—” and he can’t bring himself to say  _ can’t _ . He  _ can’t  _ leave the BAU, but he  _ can’t _ bear the idea of going back, either. He  _ can’t  _ just uproot his entire life, but he  _ can’t  _ let his life rot away stagnant, lonely. He  _ can’t _ . The word clings to the tip of his tongue, refusing to fall.

He  _ can’t  _ lose another soulmate.

_ I already have _ .

“I’ll think about it.”


End file.
